Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Celebrating Diversity Through Children's Books

I received a free copy of this book to review as part of Multicultural Children's Book Day. The views expressed are my own.

We love discovering new books, especially books that include characters that reflect the diverse world in which we live. Not only does Today the Teacher Changed Our Seats feature a diverse group of students in the classroom as well as an African-American male teacher, but it is also a book that allows for learning discussions and activities around the math concept of grouping and the reality that sometimes teachers do things our children don't like (i.e. separating them from their friends or asking them to sit somewhere new).

Since grouping is a math concept my 3 and 5 year-old aren't really familiar with, I wasn't sure if the book would engage them, but I was wrong. Wild Thing (my 5 year-old son) LOVES math, so the idea that this book was a book about math excited him. I think he also liked seeing a teacher in a book that was an African-American man, since his dad (who is African-American and Latino teaches filmmaking and digital arts two days a week at Wild Thing's charter school).

Another surprise for me was how well this book engaged my early reader. Many of the words in the book are words Wild Thing is learning to read: yellow, red, gray, green, so he and I enjoyed reading the book together as I read most of the words, and he read the words that he knew. Plus, the math focus of the book had him spouting addition facts to me, which was fun.

10 comments:

thank you so much for a lovely review - what a great picture of your son reading - love it - look for more diversity in To know The Sea - I think your sons will love the problem solving sailoragain, thank you,Frances Gilbert

My daughter is in 5th grade and still reports anytime they have to change sets! It's nice to see when she makes new friends, while still keeping the longtime ones. I love the illustrations! Thanks for sharing.